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Monday, June 7, 2004

More Metaphor Readings
David Jones recommended the challenging Rule of Metaphor by Paul Ricouer as an addition to my thesis paper reading.

A chance meeting with Ben at the library got me a copy of the impossible-to-find yet seminal essay "Metaphors for Interface Design" by E. Hutchins in The Structure of Multimodal Dialogue. I'm also checking out his thesis paper, which, unbeknownst to me, was also about metaphor: Human Interaction as a Metaphor for HCI.

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Friday, June 4, 2004

Summer Reading
I've been compiling my summer reading list for my thesis paper. Nothing like laying on the beach reading some good books on semiotics and interaction design, now is there? (As if I'm laying on the beach at all this summer...)

• Metaphor and Thought, 2nd edition edited by Andrew Ortony
• Metaphors We Live By, by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson
• Where The Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction, by Paul Dourish
• Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change the What We Think and Do, by BJ Fogg
• On the Origin of Objects, by Brian Cantwell Smith
• "Visual Interaction Design: Beyond the Interface Metaphor" by Ken Mohnkern
• "Working With Interface Metaphors" by T. Erickson. In The Art of Human Computer Interface Design, edited by Brenda Laurel
• "The Application of Metaphor, Analogy, and Conceptual Models in Computer Systems" by Lucy Wozny
• "Is The Trashcan Being Ironic? Applying a Contemporary Theory of Metaphor to HCI" by Mark Treglown
• "The Use of Metaphors in Iconic Interface Design" by Stephen Richards, Philip Barker, Ashok Banerji, Charles Lamont and Karim Manji
• "Do Metaphors Make Web Browsers Easier to Use?" by Elissa Smilowitz
• "Feelings Stuck in a GUI web: metaphors, image-schemas, and designing the human computer interface" by Tim Rohrer
• "Empty Icons in the Metaphor Trap" by Andrew Hutchinson
• "Beyond Models and Metaphors: Visual Formalisms in User Interface Design" by Bonnie Nardi and Craig Zarmer

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Wednesday, April 7, 2004

Wearables Readings
Chris Pacione, VP of Interaction Design at BodyMedia, is our guest for seminar this week. Some readings about their work and wearables:

• "BodyMedia's SenseWear Armband: Elevating the State of Health Assessments," by Chris Kasabach and Chris Pacione in Innovation, Fall 2002
• "TEDMED," by Brad Lemley in Discover, April 2003
• "Armed for Success," by Bob Parks in Business 2.0, April 2003

Monday, March 29, 2004

History of Interaction Design Readings
Readings for Marc Rettig's visit to seminar this week:

• "The Desktop Environment," by Paul Bonner, from Personal Computing, August 1984
• "Designing the Star User Interface," by David Canfield Smith, Charles Irby, Ralph Kimball, Bill Verplank, and Eric Harslem from Byte, April 1982

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Tuesday, March 16, 2004

Design Process Readings
In preparation for Hugh Dubberly's visit to Seminar on Friday, we're reading some of his articles and diagrams:

• "Alan Cooper and the Goal-Directed Design Process" from AIGA Journal of Design for the Network Economy, vol 1, no. 2
• "Usability Methods and the Design Process"
• "Origins of Design Methods Timeline"
• "Cybernetics and Systems Design Timeline"

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Monday, February 16, 2004

Norman and Sanders Readings
Readings in preparation for two upcoming guests this week: Richard Carlson and Liz Sanders.

• "Harnessing People's Creativity: Ideation and Expression through Visual Communication," by Elizabeth Sanders and Colin William
• "Categorization of Action Slips," by Don Norman from Psychological Review, volume 88, no. 1

Monday, February 9, 2004

Interaction Design Language Readings
Readings for this week's seminar class with John Rheinfrank:

• "Interaction Design Language: A technique for producing interface platforms that support interaction, create a differentiating identity, and accommodating evolutionary change" and "User-Centered Design and Beyond: From Static to Adaptive Worlds," by John Rheinfrank and Shelley Evenson
• "Components of Adaptive Worlds," by John Rheinfrank, Shelley Evanson, and Don Chartier

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Saturday, January 24, 2004

Design and Emotion Readings
Seminar readings for next week:

• "Hedonic Tone, Perceived Arousal, and Item Desirability" by Lisa Barrett
• "On the Relationship Between Emotion, Experience, and the Design of New Products" by CMU's Carl DiSalvo, Jodi Forlizzi, and Bruce Hanington
• "How Many Emotions Are There? Wedding the Social and the Autonomic Components" by T. Kempler
• "Core Affect and the Psychological Construction of Emotion" by John Russell
• "The Meaning of 'Emotion' in Dewey's Art as Experience" by P.G. Whitehouse
• "A Multilayered Model of Product Emotions" by Pieter Desmet
• "Emotion and Design: Attractive Things Work Better" by Don Norman

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Tuesday, January 20, 2004

Issues in Design Research Readings
Some readings about contemporary issues in design research (for Seminar class this week):

• "Design Research: A Disciplined Conversation" by Nigel Cross
• "Children of the Moving Present: The Ecology of Culture and the Search for Causes in Design" by CMU's own Richard Buchanan
• "The State of Design Research" by Susan Roth
• "Elicitation Methods in Experimental Design Research" by Zoe Strickler
• "Taxonomy for Extracting Design Knowledge from Research Conducted During Design Class" by CMU professors John Zimmerman, Jodi Forlizzi, and Shelley Evenson
• "Design-oriented Human-Computer Interaction" by Daniel Fallman

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Tuesday, January 13, 2004

First Readings for Design Seminar II
We having readings before the class has even begun! Our first readings are:

• "Action, Interaction, Reaction" by Nico MacDonald from Blueprint Magazine
• "About Interaction Design" from our colleagues at the Interaction Institute, Ivrea
• "From Formalism to Social Significance in Communication Design" by Jodi Forlizzi (our professor) and C. Lebbon from Design Issues, V18 n4.

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Tuesday, December 2, 2003

Ethics in Design Readings
The final set of readings for Seminar, on pluralism and objectivity in design.

• On Christian Doctrine, Book I, iii-iv by St. Augustine
• "Lifestyle Technology: Shaping Human Character and the Ideal of the Single Blossom," by Kenji Ekuan from The Aesthetics of the Japanese Lunchbox
• "Communication, Truth, and Society" by Richard McKeon from Selected Writings of Richard McKeon, Vol. 1
• "Human Dignity and Human Rights: Thoughts on the Principles of Human-Centered Design," "Design Ethics," and "Branzi's Dilemma: Design in Contemporary Culture" all by the man himself, Richard Buchanan

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Tuesday, November 25, 2003

Principles and Values in Interaction Design Reading
"Crediting Poetry: The Nobel Lecture" by Seamus Heaney

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Monday, November 17, 2003

Methods of Design Invention Readings
Seminar readings around Practicing Interaction Design.

• "Introduction: The Five Key Terms of Dramatism" and "The Four Master Tropes" by Kenneth Burke from A Grammar of Motives
• "Creativity and the Commonplace," by Richard McKeon from Rhetoric: Essays in Invention and Discovery

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Thursday, November 13, 2003

Methods of Invention Readings
Two readings about invention in design:

• "A Defense of Nonsense" by G.K. Chesterton from The Defendant
• "Wicked Problems in Design Thinking" by Dick Buchanan from The Idea of Design

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Monday, November 10, 2003

Grammar and Dialectic Readings
Continuing the exploration between the traditional arts and design, two more readings:

• "The Elements of Graphic Design" by Philip Meggs from chapter one of Type and Image: The Language of Graphic Design
• "The Rhetoric of the Image" by Roland Barthes from Image-Music-Text

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Tuesday, November 4, 2003

Rhetoric and Poetics Readings
Readings for Seminar for The Art of Communication and Interaction Design section:

• "The Rhetorical Stance" by Wayne C. Booth
• "Design as Communication" by George Nelson
• "Design and the New Rhetoric: Productive Arts in the Philosophy of Culture" by our own Dick Buchanan

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Skills Reading

For the unconscious competence project we have a reading: "Skills" by Michael Polanyi, from Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy.

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Monday, October 27, 2003

Product and Information Readings

Some Design Seminar readings on products and information:

• "Design Potentialities" by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy
• "To Know and To Be Informed" by K.J. McGarry from The Changing Context of Information: An Introductory Analysis
• and one from Dick Buchanan himself, "Good Design in the Digital Age"

Thursday, October 9, 2003

Robot Readings

A bunch of readings related to our robot walker interface project.

• "Origin and Evolution of the Walkerette," by Leo Dobrin
• "Assistive Devices, Robots, and Quality of Life in the Frail Elderly," by Geoff Fernie from The Concepts and Measurement of Life in the Frail Elderly
• "A Robotically-Augmented Walker for Older Adults," by a lot of people and Sebastian Thrun
• "An Analysis of Problems with Walkers Encountered by Elderly Persons," by William Mann, Dianne Hurren, Machiko Tomita, and Barbara Charvat in Phys. and Occ. Therapy in Geriatrics 13
• "Designing devices that are acceptable to the frail elderly: a new understanding based upon how older people perceive a walker," by Ken Pippin and Geoff Fernie in Technology and Disability 7

Wednesday, October 8, 2003

Socrates and the City

Readings for Seminar:

• Phaedrus by Plato
• "The City as Environment," by Kevin Lynch from City Sense and City Design

Monday, October 6, 2003

Artistole

Seminar reading: Aristotle's Poetics

Thursday, October 2, 2003

Essentialist Readings

Two readings that relate to essentialist interactions:

• "Alphabets," a poem by Nobel-Prize winner Seamus Heaney
• "The Nature of Form," by Kenneth Burke

Monday, September 29, 2003

More Dewey Readings

Perhaps the seminal interaction design text, "Having an Experience," by John Dewey from Art as Experience. Also by Dewey, "The Existential Matrix of Inquiry: Cultural" from Logic: The Theory of Inquiry.

Saturday, September 27, 2003

John Dewey Readings

We're moving into a third interpretation of interaction: essentialist interaction. John Dewey's works are apparently a major part of this interpretation. The first two articles we're reading: Education as a Necessity of Life and Education as a Social Function, both from his book Democracy and Education.

Wednesday, September 24, 2003

Second Most Important Interaction Text

Seminar reading, what Dick Buchanan says is the second most important reading in "classic" interaction design theory: Chapter II of Time and Free Will by Henri Bergson.

Wednesday, September 17, 2003

Lots o' Articles

A mass of readings from interface class:

• "The Computer for the 21st Century," by Mark Weiser
• Chapters one and three of "Designing Effective Speech Interfaces," by Susan Weinschenk and Dean Barker
• "Designing Calm Technology," by Mark Weiser and John Seely Brown
• "Intelligibility and Accountability: Human Considerations in Context-Aware Systems," by Victoria Bellotti and Keith Edwards
• "Situation Awareness and the Cognitive Management of Complex Systems," by Marilyn Jager Adams, Yvette Tenney, and Richard Pew
• "Time-Machine Computing: A time-centric Approach for the Information Environment," by Jun Rekimoto
• "Coordinating the Interruption of People in Human-Computer Interaction," by Daniel McFarlane
• "The Chatterbox," by Johan Redstrom, Patricija Jaksetic, and Peter Ljungstrand
• "The Information Percolator: Ambient Information Display in a Decorative Object," by Jeremy Heiner, Scott Hudson, and Kenichiro Tanaka
• "Designing Audio Aura," by Elizabeth Mynatt, Maribeth Back, and Roy Want
• "Feather, Scent, and Shaker: Supporting Simple Intimacy," by Rob Strong and Bill Gaver

Guess what I'll be doing this weekend?

Monday, September 15, 2003

Transactions Readings

Seminar readings for next week:

• "Facial Engagements," by Erving Goffman
• "Personal Thoughts on Teaching and Learning," "Significant Learning: In Therapy and in Education," and "Dealing with Breakdowns in Communication--Interpersonal and Intergroup" by Carl Rogers from On Becoming a Person

Sunday, September 14, 2003

Communication as Change

Weekend reading for Seminar: "Communication: The Context of Change" by Dean Bernlund.

Tuesday, September 9, 2003

Semantics and Communication

Tonight's texts:

• "Adumbration as a Feature of Intercultural Communication" by Edward T. Hall
• "Introduction to an Attitude" [Ed. note: I don't need an introduction.] and "When People Talk With People" by John Condon from his book Semantics and Communication

Saturday, September 6, 2003

Weekend Readings

• "Preface" and "How Big is a Chunk?" from Models of Thought and "Motivational and Emotional Controls of Cognition" by Nobel-prize winning economist Herbert Simon
• "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information" by George Miller
• "Failure" by Don Moyer
• "Thesaurus" by former US Poet Laureate Billy Collins

Tuesday, September 2, 2003

Controls

One more reading for this week: "Controls" from User Interface Design for Electronic Appliances by Konrad Baumann.

Friday, August 29, 2003

Labor Day Weekend Readings

For those of you playing at home who want to know what I'll be up to this weekend, it's the following readings:

• "Information Ecologies," chapter four from Information Ecologies by Bonnie Nardi and Vicki O'Day
• "Knowing What To Do," chapter four from Don Norman's great The Design of Everyday Things
• "Touch Me, Hit Me and I Know How You Feel: A Design Approach to Emotionally Rich Interaction," by Stephan Wensveen, Kees Overbeeke, and Tom Djajadiningrat
• "But how, Donald, tell us how?: On the creation of meaning in interaction design through feedforward and inherent feedback," by Stephan Wensveen, Kees Overbeeke, and Tom Djajadiningrat
• "The Mathematics of Communication," by Warren Weaver
• "Communication Theory," from Introduction to Communication Studies by John Fiske

You envy me now, don't you?

Wednesday, July 30, 2003

Planar Construction

We spent today's class making small sculptures ("sketches") out of foamcore and paper rectangles, the dimensions of which were based on the measurements we took of our bodies back on Monday, scaled down to 1/4 size. It's all about how planes relate to each other in space. Not surprisingly, there were a lot of Fallingwater-influenced designs, and quite a few that looked like Frank Gehry leftovers.

It's strange to think of 3D shapes as sketches, able to be changed easily. It was equally strange not to sketch out on paper these sculptures, but just relax and train your mind to move freely about the space. The next step is adding a black-and-white image to the planes of the sculpture. I'll post pictures tomorrow.

Reading: We're also reading Elements of Design, which is a collection of the thoughts and processes of Rowena Reed Kostellow, an influential and innovative design educator.